Scrimdods

I really like learning other languages, and I have some friends that speak Russian so I thought it might be fun to try to learn so I can talk with them in their own language. Is Russian language learning difficult? I know they have a different alphabet, but at least it is just an alphabet and not like Chinese and Japanese where they have all those different symbols to learn. Do they have classes anywhere that I could use to learn how to speak some basic Russian to surprise my friends the next time I go to visit them for a while?